


And then Water

by FELover



Category: Arslan Senki | Heroic Legend of Arslan
Genre: Close call, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 09:16:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5534390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FELover/pseuds/FELover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My name is Estelle, my Lord. I am gifted with the name of your daughter, the dawn. I am of no worth…</p>
            </blockquote>





	And then Water

**Author's Note:**

> Remember when Etoile falls from the wall, pulling Arslan with her? It was such a beautiful moment when Arslan looked at the sunset, so I wrote this, though from Etoile's point of view. Surprisingly, because she's not anywhere near being a character I like. Still, she's interesting, you know? Too bad all I know of Arslan Senki is what is presented in the anime, so I took some creative liberties.

“Is this what a soul feels like,” Estelle wondered as she fell from a great height. “as it speeds from the body?”

Heaven was not firm and steady, nor was it warm and fluttery like a bird in her palms, rather it was clammy and cold on her skin like fog in a great forest of terror. Speed shot through her veins, cutting the respiration and pushing the beating of her heart up to her throat.

When you're about to meet death, she remembered somebody saying at some point in her life, the Lord stops time for you to be your own judge. Gives you time to repent.

Was this it then? This fall from the walls of Ecbatana.

She quickly let go of her blade and brought her hands together.

‘Unto thee will I cry, O Lord, my lord. Be not silent to me, for if Thou be silent to me I become like them who fall to the pits of Hell…’

She waited for a voice, a whisper, a murmur of graceful love, the likes of which only divinity could gift her. The wind rushed at her ears, and she thought this was it.

This wind was brisk, like the foreboding winds before battling. It was her God’s gentle hand tenderly caressing her cheek before sending her off to do His work, like a bird’s wing pushing their nestlings off the edge of the branch so they could learn to fly. This wind was the same wind that came down from the place where the stars glittered and went to every corner of the earth.

‘Save Thy people, O lord…’

A selfless prayer; she was proud of herself. But now came time to repent for her sins, and she let regret fully consume her heart; it went into the jaws of a black dog. This was not a difficult task, she had sinned and the act of feeling guilt had been instilled in her. She’d perfected the art of remorse.

‘My name is Estelle, my Lord. I am gifted with the name of your daughter, the dawn. I am of no worth…’

There was a song then, a pagan song which had once comforted her when it fell from the lips of her once pagan mother, a young woman with tired eyes and braided hair, before either knew of God and that there was only Him and His truth, and all else was a sinful lie.

‘I am worthless and dumb, my Lord. I know I am insignificant in the cosmos of your divine understanding…’

“Your new name is Estelle,” her father had told her. “After Ostara, who is of Yaldabaoth our God a daughter; the dawn. Like Yaldabaoth said to her, I say to you; ‘You shall bring light to the world, my daughter.’ Slay the shadows of faithlessness, Estelle.”

And so she’d done. There was a shimmer, a glitter at the edge of her sword to which clung the first light of dawn, or star light brighter than the silver moon.

“I never liked your father’s obsessive laugh,” her mother had told her. “He believes the world is rotten and only he can save it, and each new year he changes faith. I don’t know what is wrong with the man.”

But her father had always been kind and wise. He taught her of nature’s gift and the goods and evils of the world. He had told her her mother was a black-haired witch.

Her poor thoughts were scattered like pebbles carelessly thrown to the sea.

Her cursed mother’s voice twinkled in her heart.

‘The devil sends songs to my ears, my Lord. And I am a vain, unworthy servant of yours.’

By her side an angel also fell, from whom she felt the horror, for angels made her feel horror, being, as she now saw, neither mind nor matter, white, filmy and frightening, like the translucent bodies of ghosts.

When her eyes opened again, she saw the golden of the sun at its zenith and she thought this was what the gates to Heaven opening must look like, crowned by blushed clouds, the sun sending beams of light to her like open arms of forgiveness.

She felt the warmth.

The love.

And then water.

Water from which, as she emerged, she felt a fresh promise on her skin; a second baptism, a second chance. 

 


End file.
